Group items tagged

"the software known as Tor has become the most vouchsafed and developer-friendly method for using the Internet incognito. The free and open source program triple-encrypts your traffic and bounces it through computers around the globe, making tracing it vastly more difficult. Most Tor users know the program as a way to anonymously browse the Web."

"Yik Yak is the Wild West of anonymous social apps," said Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at University of Maryland and the author of "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace." "It is being increasingly used by young people in a really intimidating and destructive way." Continue reading the main story Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking. The app's privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm.

This year, Yik Yak is the app du jour; racist, sexist, and homophobic comments posted on Yik Yak have led to student protests on some campuses, and attempts by administrators to block access to the site on others. But Yik Yak is not the problem; in fact, I am confident that the hype over this particular app will soon die down, and it will be replaced by some new, more exciting tool. The problem lies in a culture that accepts - indeed embraces - the act of broadcasting, behind a protective mask of anonymity, statements that most would find offensive.

"Concealing one's true identity online has made it possible for free speech to break through the physical barriers enforced by governments and dictatorships across the world, as we have seen recently in places like Libya, Egypt and Iran. "

"with nothing more than this anonymous location data, someone who wanted to badly enough could easily figure out who you are by tracking your smartphone. Patterns of our movements, when traced on a map, create something akin to a fingerprint that is unique to every person."

"Project Management for Instructional Designers (PM4ID) is - as the name suggests - a book about project management tailored specifically for instructional designers. This book is a revise / remix of a pre-existing, openly licensed project management textbook which was donated to the commons by a benefactor that desires to be attributed as Anonymous."

MeTL is a collaborative software program that allows teachers to interact more fully with their students by: inking, typing and drawing setting quizzes facilitating group work developing mind maps, diagrams, formulae and equations live with your class submitting and receiving anonymous feedback having a conversation with your students revisiting your conversations at any time.

"Lack of civility in online forums within learning communities is manageable in small, closed online learning communities where an instructor is in control of a class of up to thirty, or even forty students. However, as classes expand, with MOOCs, and other types of learning communities growing, in combination with platforms that allow anonymity (such as Coursera) it will become an issue for educators [and their institutions] involved in online learning at some time or another. Peers within my network have shared their experiences as students and instructors within MOOCs that involve politically charged or contentious subject matters where discussion forums are fraught with offensive, even toxic comments and vitriol discussion.  It is for this reason that I write this post; to provoke thought and discussion in order for educators to be proactive and develop appropriate strategies."